The invention generally relates to rotary hand tools and more particularly to a removable guide attachment for use with a rotary hand tool.
Guide assemblies that can be attached to various types of rotary hand tools are certainly known in the art. A task that is carried out by artisans and homeowners involves the removal and replacement of grout between tiles in floor and wall tiled surfaces. This is often a very difficult task to complete without a specialty rotary tool or a guide attachment for a multiple use commercially available rotary hand tools. One well-known attachment device utilizes two separate components, a housing and an adapter, where the adapter is coupled to a hand drill or other rotary hand tool, and the adapter and housing can be locked in various positions. A grout removal bit is held in a collet and engages a work surface.
This known guide attachment presents the user with some limitations. The housing is configured for removing grout from flat surfaces only, and does not permit the user to remove grout from corners. The base of the housing has guide points to help keep the bit centered in the groove between adjacent tiles of the work surface, but the guide points are a fixed width that may not correspond to the width of the groove. As a result, the bit may wander off center when the desired work surface is wider than the guide points and render the guide points ineffective when the work surface is narrower than the width of the guide points. The guide points wear rapidly because they are made of a relatively soft material, and the housing is not configured to receive a vacuum port for removing debris during operation. The housing/locking mechanism configuration only accommodates adapters of a certain width which makes it difficult to attach the guide attachment to rotary hand tools of varying widths.